Christine exited her Tuesday morning class in good spirits. The semester was off to a good start. Her classes (especially the ones that did not include Cara) were going well, and despite the tension the night before, lessons were going well. She hadn't felt so encouraged about her music in a very long time.

Strangely enough, she found herself looking forward to the upcoming audition. She finally felt as though she would live up to the expectations others had of her, and she was finally willing to prove them correct.

The only reservation she had was that it meant her lessons with her faceless, nameless tutor would come to an end. The thought caused unexpected melancholy, which was surely unfounded. After all, she didn't even know who he was. Moreover, he refused to tell her.

She reasoned her sadness was due to her increasing reliance on him, but more and more, she was having difficulty convincing herself that it was the only reason.

They rarely talked about anything outside of her audition piece, but even so, the hours she spent with her disembodied tutor were the best of her day. She felt outside of herself, devoted entirely to her music and the work they were doing. The practice room seemed to her like another dimension, one in which the worries and fears of the outside world did not exist.

There was something about her tutor, too, that put her at ease, even when he was castigating her. His passion for music was so obvious, so pure, it humbled her.

But so much about their situation bothered her, especially after the conversation with Meg and the others. Her imagination had run rampant, and it hadn't stopped running, not even at her lesson. It had showed in her nervousness, and in his suspicion of her. He had been so defensive, that it only served to agitate doubts already present.

She could not understand. Perhaps it was for the best that their relationship would soon come to a close.

Christine had taken so much for granted for the sake of finally having an audition go well. If she really thought about it, she hardly recognized herself at all. Was she really naïve enough to talk to a stranger through a wall, trusting that he had her best interests at heart? Trusting that he was associated with the school in some way, and was not some dangerous person haunting her evening hours?

Because of course he was a man. A flesh and blood, breathing, real man.

She told herself she didn't believe in the silly rumors circulating the school about the Ghost, but there were coincidences Christine couldn't ignore.

Christine knew Jamie was prone to dramatics and exaggeration. No one would argue that. But so much of Jamie's account of the Ghost rang true with her tutor.

He too threw his voice, just like the 'Ghost' had. Christine had come to realize that was how her tutor had communicated with her all this time. It explained how he was able to make it sound as though he were standing right in front of her, or behind. She jumped every time, and it still unnerved her.

There was also the matter of what he sounded like. Her tutor was just as Jamie described. That particular comparison would not leave her.

But ghosts did not exist. She had believed in angels once upon a time, to the point where she had questioned whether or not her father had sent this tutor to her from heaven. But Christine was no longer a child, and hardly believed in anything anymore.

Except, perhaps, in this man who was able to make her voice soar.

She couldn't afford to think about it anymore. The audition was a few days away, and she needed to stay focused. Her tutor would abandon her soon enough, she could feel it. Their business would be done in due time, and she wouldn't need to know anything more about him.

Approaching the quad, she saw Meg sitting by herself at a table, a salad laid out in front of her. There was a matching salad across from her.

Christine smiled. The girl was forever thinking of her.

"Meg, you're the best," Christine introduced, sliding into her seat.

Meg looked up, a beatific smile on her face. "I know," she said with aplomb. "How was class? How's that cutie, Eddie Hayden?"

Christine lifted an eyebrow. "Why Meg, I didn't think he was your type! But I can put in a good word. If you'd like," she added, cheekily.

Meg looked at her slyly. "I thinking more for you."

Christine hesitated as she opened the lid to her salad, but tried to smooth over the blip in her composure. "I told you, Meg, he doesn't like me like that anymore. We settled that last year. We're friends now."

"Fine, fine," Meg said airily. "Besides, I know you have Raoul. Still, nice to have a back-up. Just in case."

Christine laughed. "Meg, I hardly have the energy to date one person, let alone think about dating several people. I don't know how you do it."

Meg threw her sable hair over her shoulder. "This is college, babe. It's much easier keeping things light and breezy. Serious relationships at our age are dangerous. Plus, talk about constraining."

"Plus," Christine added, "There's also the fact that if you were to date anyone seriously, Dean Giry would get wind of it."

"Precisely," Meg answered, pointing her fork in Christine's direction.

Christine huffed. "Meg, you deserve more than just a couple of useless flings. I know you're enjoying yourself, but don't sell yourself short. You're worth more than that."

"I know. But for now, speed dating around campus is working for me. It lets me focus on school while letting off a bit of steam." She popped a soggy crouton in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Let's change gears. How's the preparation for your audition going?"

"I…good," Christine answered unevenly.

Meg lifted an eyebrow. "Just good? Do you think you'll be ready in time?"

"Yes, actually. I think I will."

Meg smiled. "Glad to hear it. All those long hours in the practice rooms at night must be paying off. Do you ever see anyone else there? Must be a ghost town, especially this early in the semester."

Christine choked. Meg's eyes widened.

"I just meant mid-terms aren't for another few weeks." Meg frowned. "What's wrong, Christine?"

Christine cleared her throat, sipping on a bit of water to stall for time. She hated that she was keeping secrets from her best friend. She knew she couldn't tell Meg about her tutor. She would believe one of two things about him. Either than he was a stalker, spying on her at night and preying upon her innocence, or…

That he was the Ghost everyone was talking about.

She didn't know which one was worse.

"Yes. I'm fine," she answered.

Meg looked skeptical, but dropped it. "Good. Now, let me tell you what Andrea said to Loren earlier…"

The act of keeping a secret from Meg ate at Christine for the rest of the day. Not even her lesson with her tutor (one that was stunted and overly polite on his part) could distract her. She had practically sprinted out of the music building afterward with the overpowering desire to just talk to someone.

There was only one person she could do that with, and strangely enough, that person was Raoul. A boy (a man now, she reminded herself) she had only just reconnected with after years of estrangement.

Her lack of close friends only fueled her desire to talk to him more. A feeling, deep in her gut, told her she could trust Raoul. So she held nothing back.

"Raoul…" she said hesitantly, cradling her cell phone in both hands against her ear. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

There was a notable, awkward pause on the other end of the line.

"Well," he said, his tone evasive.

Christine knew Raoul well enough to know that meant yes. "Wait, seriously?"

"Shh," he said, and she could imagine his ears turning red as beets. "Be gentle with me, I had a tough day at school."

She laughed a little for his sake, even if it sounded hollow to her ears. "I'm sorry. But I am curious."

"You have to swear you won't tease me for it."

"I won't, I swear," she promised.

He sighed. "Okay, so, it's like this. My family's estate in New York is old. Really old. My great-grandfather bought it back in the 1910s. We'd always vacation there during Christmas and…I don't know." She could see him shrug in her mind's eye. "The house was creepy. I heard things at night. When we were kids, Philippe told me that it was the ghost of our great-grandma Judie." Christine shivered. "I hated that house. I try to avoid it now at all costs."

Christine walked a little slower, thinking that over. As children, they had both delighted in her father's tales of sea monsters and mountain trolls, but as an adult, she had left much of that imagining behind. Raoul's lingering superstitions seemed like a luxury he could afford, a token of childhood he had pilfered. Christine hadn't been so lucky.

Just one more thing to make Christine pitiable. Perhaps she was odd for not believing in ghosts.

As if sensing something was off, he lowered his voice to a gentle hum. "Why do you ask, Christine?"

She bit her tongue. "Before I tell you, you're going to have to swear you won't tease me."

"You know that's a promise I can't keep."

Christine laughed again, a little more genuinely this time.

"Well," she began, "Do you remember that weird encounter I had in the practice room?"

She summed up the transition into her lessons, the rumors and how they related to her suspicions about her tutor.

Raoul's voice sobered significantly. "Christine, I told you that you can't let your guard down at Cartier. This sounds serious. You may have a stalker."

Christine shook her head, forgetting for a moment that Raoul couldn't see her. "It's not like that, Raoul."

"You don't know that," Raoul protested.

Christine lowered her voice. "Raoul, trust me. He won't so much as tell me his name. We never talk about anything outside of music. Whoever he is, he's harmless. I can feel it."

"Christine," Raoul replied patiently, "I appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me about this, but now that you have, I'm really worried about your safety. You need to tell someone."

"Really, Raoul-"

"Christine," Raoul cut in, his voice desperate. "I mean it. Or…."

She frowned. "Or?"

"Or I'll have to call the police on your behalf."

Christine stopped walking, offended. "I never asked you to do that." Her voice was hard. She couldn't explain why, but she felt betrayed.

"I just want you safe," he pressed, his tone entreating. "I won't push you on this because I know you're stubborn enough to ignore me, even if it's against what's best for you."

She said nothing, strongly considering hanging up.

"But," he continued, sensing her displeasure, "If you won't call the cops, at least tell a teacher. Someone you trust. That way someone has all the information if something does go wrong."

Christine considered this. She didn't feel like she was in danger, as Raoul was suggesting, but it wasn't bad advice. She had no family, aside from Mrs. Valerius, and few friends. If something did happen to her, for whatever reason, she wouldn't want to regret not taking a friend's advice.

"I'll think about it," she replied evenly.

He was quiet for a moment, and sighed. "Please, just…promise me."

She could tell this meant a lot to him, and despite her irritation, was touched. She let go of some of that irritation. "I promise, Raoul."

"Thank you."

She looked up to see that the conversation had brought her back to her dorm. "Okay, well, I'm home now, so I'm gonna go. Thanks for the talk, Raoul."

"Just to be clear, you're still going to go on a date with me, right?

That short-circuited her brain. She wasn't prepared for that.

"Umm," she stalled, trying to let her thoughts catch up. "Well, you'd have to ask me out on one, first."

"I just did," he responded, his tone sly.

She couldn't help it. She laughed out loud.

"So you did!" She felt her cheeks warm a little. "Um…sure." Her heart skipped.

"Great!" he answered, boyish enthusiasm masking any attempt at playing it cool. "This weekend?"

She hummed her agreement, her mind spinning.

"Talk to you later, then, Christine. Sleep well."

She'd try, but it didn't seem likely.

Erik was having a bad day.

After years of carefully avoiding the inevitable, he felt as though he were finally going mad.

Insanity was, of course, what happened when you returned to the same idea, attacked it in the same fashion, and waited for a different ending. By that definition, he knew that he was insane.

Namely, going back to Christine and hoping that she would accept his presence without physically seeing him.

It was what they all wanted in the end - to see him! Couldn't anyone leave well enough and give him peace?

Beneath the fury at her was a deeper anger at himself. He knew that this idea was preposterous from the start, and yet he had stubbornly let it go on.

It was perfectly understandable that she had concerns. And he was not obtuse enough to miss the trepidation in the girl's voice. He recognized it well enough. It rang of wariness.

If she was agonized at all about the growing chasm between them, she didn't know the half of it. Each lesson was a fresh torment. The need to be in the room with her, to experience the change to her voice as he instructed her, was staggering. He had never felt anything so consuming as the infatuation he had with Christine's voice.

Her voice, he assured himself steadily. That was all. Not her.

Luckily, he did have something to distract him, even if he wasn't nearly as interested in it as he was in Christine's progress.

Looking down at the screen of his phone, one would assume Erik had many friends. All hours of the day, it lit up like a Christmas tree.

Sadly enough, it was only because one person insisted on texting him, and that person's attentions were bordering on smothering.

Giry asked 2 meet with u. Could always give her your # and avoid middle man.

Srsly, Erik. 3 o'clock, Giry's office. Don't 4get.

U haven't answered me in 12 hrs. Erik pls don't mess this up. Baker on my back.

Nadir was acting like a mother hen, and Erik, his errant chick. But Nadir had always fashioned himself to be Erik's nanny.

It didn't help that Nadir was asking Erik to venture out and into the open in the middle of the day. Had he conveniently developed early onset dementia and forgotten that Erik was a freak? Surely parading down the hallways of an educational institution looking like an overdressed bag of bones was the least surreptitious method for solving this case.

He had half a mind to flee the city altogether and find some dark hole to waste away in.

If not for Christine.

He had worked himself into a rotten temper by the time he reached Giry's office. He gave her door two sharp knocks before striding in, regardless of an invitation.

"By all means, come in, Monsieur," Giry said calmly, her eyebrows heading for her hairline. She was seated behind her desk, her glasses perched low on her nose. Her accent was crisply articulate, and so dry it could have drained the Baltic Sea.

"I do not know why you persist with François. I am not French," Erik said rudely, standing in front of her with his arms crossed. The stark fabric of his long trench coat almost squeaked with the movement.

"Oh you most certainly are," she said, straightening a stack of papers before her. "I can spot another Frenchman from miles away. But I doubt you came in here to dispute nationalities." Giry lowered the papers to the desk and stared at him expectantly, a crafted eyebrow remaining firmly raised.

Erik looked at her stonily. "I was told you had something for me."

"Ah, yes, that," Giry said at length. She gestured to the seats in front of her. "Would you care to sit?"

He said nothing, his masked expression exhibiting complete opposition.

She sighed. "Very well." She picked up a manila folder and handed it to him.

"What is this?" he asked, taking it from her and flipping through its' contents.

"Logs of every donation made to this institution in the last six months," Giry answered, picking up a teacup from her desk and sipping it delicately. Her lips left a dark beige stain on the rim. "Both public and private. As you can probably guess, the majority of the donations were made by private donors. All aliases, of course, to kept their identities a secret." She pointed to the folder. "Beneath that is a list matching probable aliases. I've been able to confirm a few, myself."

Erik lifted his gaze from the folder, the light in his eyes dimming from guarded to something more neutral. Something like respect.

"Might I ask how you came by these records, Madame?"

A small crack in Giry's stony expression. "I happen to be friendly with a woman who works for the financial department. She's worked here for some years, you see, and is a terrible gossip. And she happened to owe me a favor."

Erik nodded solemnly. "Very well. I'll have Nadir look through them. He's far better suited for research than field work." He was lying, but only about the first part. Nadir was better suited for research, but Erik would also look over the files personally. He was nothing if not a perfectionist.

Eyes narrowing, Erik assessed Giry. She was far more discerning than she looked, which meant that she probably guessed Erik was not a people-person and would avoid meetings at all costs.

"You called me in specifically for this." His words were clipped, pointed.

Giry opened her mouth to say something, closed it, and opened it again.

Erik's eyes narrowed further. "Yes?" he said thinly.

"I admit to being curious," Giry said. Erik felt a prickle of discomfort. Here was a woman who exuded pride, and she was admitting something personal to him. He was surely having some ill effect on the woman. A predictable occurrence. He was a plague upon humanity, and women in particular suffered the consequences. "I looked you up."

This was not going in a direction Erik liked. "I see," he said, his mood darkening.

Giry looked wary, but continued on, resilient. "There's no trace of you online. No employment, school or financial records. It's as if you were-"

"A ghost?" Erik said, a dark grimace twisting what little bit of his face Giry could see.

She studied him, her eyes narrowing slowly. "Actually...yes."

He was not obtuse. He had heard the idle rumors of the school's supposed 'Ghost', and how the conversation had lately shifted to his personal exploits. He had no problem with being invisible, but he did not want the infamy. If word got out, and that dimwit Baker found out…

Or if Christine started to pay attention...

He had to give Giry credit. Here she was, practically placing herself on a spit for Erik to roast, and yet she still dared look him straight in the eye. No, he would not flambé this woman. She had more courage than many of her ilk. He was even, against his will, starting to like her.

"I will overlook this misstep in judgment, Madame, if you will agree to cease your investigations. I can assure you, you will find nothing. Any further insight into my character will only result in unpleasantness."

Giry looked as if she wanted to say something else, but before she could, the door to her office slammed open. A flurry of frizzy hair was framed by the wooden doorway.

Giry stood up swiftly. "I beg your pardon, but you cannot barge in here-!"

Before she could finish, she paused, slightly shocked. The two occupants stared at the intruder. The girl in the doorway stared back, but only at Erik. Her eyes were wide, the whites overtaking the blue, her face turning ashen.

"You found the ghost," Christine said quietly.

A/N: So I said I was going to get better at updating...guys, I'm working on it. I realize I'm the worst. I'm hoping that now that Erik and Christine have actually met in person, things will get a little easier henceforth.

Also, YOU GUYS. I called Erik a 'chick'! -snorts-

What do you all think of Raoul? Too soon to be so overprotective? Or just right? Is Giry sassy enough for you? I feel like the Giry sass (in both the younger and the elder) can never be overstated.

Thanks for reading! Until next time!